[That had left plenty of time to have practiced reading aloud at any point between now and then, he doesn't say.
Instead, he takes his own glass of wine—the same low, faintly sweet stuff in Leander's cup—and retires to the made ready chair. The foot stool apparently requires further adjustment from the toe of his boot before it's fit for its intended use.]
But I can only assume you've been busy learning your lockpicks. Slowly, [is a reminder as his heel settles in its place, punctuated by a nod to the book.] We've discussed the deficiencies of my ear when it comes to parsing the language aloud.
[It's not about the words, more their cadence—but the metre seems even enough at a glance, anyway. Things not worth arguing aloud. That little jab is better for what it is, with only the shade of a sideways glance to come after it. As if he hasn't been reading between then and now, please, what do you take him for.
He tastes the wine, finds it inoffensive initially, more enjoys its settling in among his tastebuds.]
Slowly, then. To start. [A polite cough to prepare: two hitches in the throat, mouth closed.] I'll ask your forgiveness in advance for any deficiencies of the tongue.
[He doesn't smile, but gives the page below a lofty look, with his eyebrows raised just enough—nor does he glance the commander's way, or wet his lip. He knows his voice is pleasing; he knows the language like someone who loves it. He knows the way he is, stood there next to the fire, a cup in one hand and a book spread between his fingers and thumb, is tinder enough.
And the commonalities between them (different materials, similar shapes), and his willingness to bend (but only so far), and the very dangerous thing they're about to do (the thrill of secrecy and potential in it), those are the sparks.
[On the Minanter goes ever kind of mortal creature. Like a recitation of the work of distantly remembered kings unfolds the fisherman and the men of the stockyards, and children who barely hardly the shape of the Necropolis' shadow for they live so fully inside of it. Everyone in the world wants, and the verse knows this in the way the river flows: naturally.
Mostly it is, at its center, a poem very pleased with it's own cleverness. It delights in detail as a flayed fish loves salt. The rise and fall of the unfamiliar constants is like a texture under the fingertips, separating this room from everything it is otherwise attached to in the way each portrait drawn in the verse is distinct. And Leander has a pleasant voice. It's an easy rythm to settle into.
He listens, one foot propped up on the stool and his elbows hooked patiently at the arms of the chair with the cup of wine balanced between them. It has been a long day, and there is something sentimental about being read to—
He listens to the shape of a language that is part sound and half meaning, nursing his drink, and is content to let Leander decide when he is finished.]
[Leander reads, and reads, and soon leaves the mantle to pace serenely as he reads, as though he himself were wandering, while the city unfurls in a cascade of detail so immediate the smell of the river ghosts through his sinus. Though it seems automatic, a habit, his body never leaves a comfortable field of view.
A break, unhurried, while the wine does its work, his pale slate eye never leaving the page. While his tongue barely glints at the corner of his mouth, he seems to read ahead in silence, then rolls a smoothing sound through his throat and resumes.
More than once, a smile threatens to surface among the speaking shapes. Finely sculpted lips, hewn and polished teeth. Now and then, the sliding offset of his jaw. His voice delivering the verse as fluid smoke. The crisp edge of his presence softening, stroke by stroke, as ice softens beneath the hand.
Time slows, dozes; the world winds down into words; the words themselves wind down, until the first book has run out, and Leander's voice cedes to silence. He turns the page, again reads on for some seconds, only for himself...
and looks up, at last.
A soft pat, cushioned by air, as the book closes in his hand.]
[Like a curtain drawing closed across a window previously indulging an eye which has risen from work and roved absently toward some distant visible shape, the soft thud of the closing book recalls the immediacy of the room. There is the fire in the hearth, and the faint whistle of air which passes through a gap in a window's frame, and the bolted door and the empty cup balanced on his thigh. Still now, Leander's outline has become crisp again.
Without straightening, from where Flint has settled deep into the armchair—
He studies him for a moment, and so for a brief window is equally susceptible to inspection. At some point during their exploration, both the line of tension held sharp across shoulders and the sparking humor hiding behind his whiskers has faded somewhat.]
It didn't sound like you needed much preparation.
[And, as if the two were somehow related:]
I don't have to tell you that Carastes will put you well out of the reach of any reliable friend.
[His shape, redefined, comes nearer the chair, in part to impress its height on the man seated there. Cup in one hand, book in the other. Darkly dressed in the firelight.]
No, you don't.
[Close enough, now, to offer the book back to its owner without needing to reach very far. The gesture pulls his cuff to the knob of his wrist, where his simple bracelets are tied—braided cotton floss in dull red, dark grey, and one a shade in between that looks older than the others. The slim silver ring on his thumb is new. (The piercing weight of his focus is not.)]
[Low in the chair and cast in Leander's shadow, some flickering thing passes briefly through the wrinkles at the corner of Flint's eye and along the slanting line of his mouth. It's some trace dissatisfaction—a nameless thing that prickles briefly sharp—, and has been smoothed over by the time he slips the book between his thigh and the chair's arm.]
[When that nameless thing rustles, on impulse, he nearly gives chase. The ridges of his teeth are smooth and hard against his tongue, his mouth watering. The stillness of him so complete he hardly blinks. Still, but not stiff—he has relaxed into it.
It's a trace thing. An invisible adjustment—as if Flint is suddenly aware of his own shape in the world again after a series of minutes wherein he'd comfortably forgotten it.
He doesn't adjust the cup where it's balanced on his leg; the urge to do so is dismissed as unnecessary.]
That I've enjoyed our conversations, and suspect I'll notice their absence.
[Because, yes. Leander does have a way of making unexpected friends for himself, doesn't he?]
[In response to it, Leander might make himself smaller—crouch at the arm of the chair, or sit by Flint's legs and lean there like a pet—but he enjoys this vantage, the picture it makes, and there is more honesty in resisting nearness. (In wanting to be reached for instead of always reaching.)]
So will I.
[Seconds of quiet, settling comfortably, while he considers. It can't be the wine, he's only just lifting the cup now to finish it—]
I've not lain with anyone else since our first. [Let him imagine the reasons why.] Is that something you'd like to keep?
[The point he'd failed to make to either Rutyer or Yseult is that there had been a kind of truth in those dreams. That the details weren't worth remembering, but the sentiments might be. Not as the smoke of an undiscovered fire, but as the dry end of summer where the poor handling of a spark or lamp might light one.
And the truth is, he is sending a man who dreamed himself into something very dark out into a place designed to reinforce that impulse. Carry this hot coal in your palm, Leander. Would it not be prudent to encourage a sense of control over that?
A log in the fire pops loud. The spark of it glints at the corner of his eye.]
Given how everything else will be well beyond me, I should say yes. [Should. Isn't. He is frank about it.] But I've little interest in being another person who thinks it's their responsibility to restrain you. Take your pleasure. I would only warn you that the Imperium loves nothing more than to make a shackle out of the things most ready to give it.
[Instead of the cup, he gives Leander his hand. Or his hand, a thing so well worn that even keeping a chair high in a tower hasn't yet contrived to soften it, intercedes to take a thing that wasn't being offered.]
Leander. [Is like the firm shape of his thumb.] Tell me why you asked.
[Still; caught. Not trapped, but surprised, and calm in the creep of uneasy pleasure that spreads after it.
He's watching the hand, the skin's long-weathered texture, freckled creases, suggestion of fine golden hairs in firelight—and only the hand, not the rings that adorn it. Their hands, together. Contrasting masculine forms. His own fingers, no longer light as birds' bones—this healthier strength cultivated in the months since the cave—but still slim in comparison.
He takes his time in answering.
(A vow consigned to flame, rough edge of a door beneath his hand, dark eyes bright and hard. Cutting himself free of their tangle, leaving them both clumsy for the lack of its binding. You are not a possession anyone keeps.)]
To measure the extent of my usefulness by offering something of little advantage to you, but valuable to me. I was curious what you'd say. [Tilting his head, reflective,] It's been a while since anyone's held my hand.
[His hold on him is sturdy, though lacks the sharpness of a demand. It is like the soft mouth carry of a fanged hunting dog. Enveloping, and ready to give.
(If Leander is studying their hands, then Flint is watching the half of his face which is cast in shadow—how the space widens or narrows with that faint tilt.)
There is a callous along the side of the thumb pressed into the heel of Leander's palm.]
I want to understand the conclusions you've drawn from it. Is your curiosity satisfied?
[Had Leander been there for that game of swords he and Rutyer had played in the courtyard? The turn in that bout—the second round when he'd come for Byerly with all the grace of a machete hacking?]
And then tear it from your hands, to teach you a lesson?
[Fond, as though they've been close all this time. Haven't they? In their own strange ways? Both men are excellent at keeping themselves busy, always moving, and yet it persists—whatever this is. Something. Nothing playing at being something.]
No. I should like to be kept, I think, if only for a little while. [There's that flicker of mischief.] But then, I might be depriving myself of someone who'll have me more than once a year—
[There it is again. That flicker of dissatisfaction like a tightening of muscle in an animal's jaw. In the circle of Leander's fingers, Flint's wrist flexes and his hand tightens. There's no follow through tug, no jerking pull to check him with. But the impulse—]
I'm trying to give you something now I wouldn't have then.
At last Leander's silhouette moves, becomes less a tower, as he sits on the arm of the chair. His cup is discarded on some nearby surface, shelf or table, and his hand comes to cover the one tight on his wrist. To make a pet of himself now would be vulgar—instead, this. Warmth from the fire, in the space now narrow between them, their skins. The simple weight of a hand.]
[As Leander sets his cup aside, Flint's heel shifts from the foot stool. For all that it's a narrowing, there is a sense of drawing in rather than closing away in the boot's muffled thump on the rug. He shifts in the direction of that hand over his and the soft creak of the chair's arm as Leander perches there.]
My trust.
[Is punctuated by some give and take of fingers. Somewhere in the drawn sharp lines of his face lives something vulnerable.
(What did James Flint dream of? A distinct and aching sort of want made purposefully remote in the waking world.)]
This thing in Tevinter—the war there and what comes through it. That matters to me. I'm giving you a piece of it.
[Now, this—this barely lifted corner, this glimpse of something folded away, a fine gap between closed pages. The movement between his hands. The quiet of it. This he will chase—and so all trace of teasing play departs, gentle as breath. Between his eyebrows a crease comes and goes, indecisive.
Why is too broad, could become why me—he's not interested in that. The back-and-forth about leashes and what-else, that's merely a gentle application of teeth.
But the warning to keep himself close, lest it be turned on him, is fit to draw attention. Anyone who's known Leander knows also the vigilance with which he keeps his privacy; it's a wasted piece of advice that gleams when he turns it over in his mind.
[It could be why the lead in Carastes matters, or something about the shape of the war or about things that are right to do. Hand Valeriantus and his ilk tools and so curry strength in the slaves of the north. Divide the soporati from the invisible master of what the Magisterium promises them; these are broad convictions simply conveyed. They are things which can be trusted to resonate in the south.
He could easily pretend not to understand the question.]
You remember the house on that island.
[In the fire light, visible because Leander is so near and looking straight at it, that gap in his expression gives halfway. Inside it lives—]
Long before Corypheus opened the Breach, the Imperium saw fit first to strip everything from the people who would have made a home there. And then to murder one of them for it. So I would see Corypheus undone, yes. But the thing which empowered him in the first place—that I mean to burn to cinders. And I will be damned if the fucking Southern Divine thinks she should be who sets light to it just because she imagines herself to be a fitting replacement.
[Resonate in the south, perhaps, but not in him. Leander is no one, from nowhere, and his faith a disjointed construct, formed in fragments scavenged or discarded. The house on that island, so unnamed, is one such piece—there and gone again, preserved only in memory. That he stood in a place which no longer exists in the world, that is a thing of incomparable beauty. Like watching a living thing become dead. Like watching something burn. He remembers.
The ripples, rolling quietly and inexorably outward to touch every shore—the awareness that he himself might create them. He remembers that, too.
The scope of this man's intent is very grand, indeed.]
[In the dream, Qarinus and Carastes had been places subsumed by the Qun. It seems somehow fitting then that they should come from the same direction. If there is to be any basis of truth in a dream, why not bend it in a direction that favors them?
It's a thought that would seem inconsequential in the harsh light of day when placed in context of the wide world. But in a closed room and close together, it's possible the see the idea for what it is. Broad and dangerous. A thing with teeth and purpose enough to use them.
For an instant, the answer to this consensus shows both black and heated in him. Not a spark, but a fierce and ravenous darkness.]
Given the events of last night and this place's indecision, we will need to have you off quickly in order to avoid the shadow of whatever conclusions might be reached.
[If under Leander's hand his grip eases then it is by a matter of degrees.]
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[That had left plenty of time to have practiced reading aloud at any point between now and then, he doesn't say.
Instead, he takes his own glass of wine—the same low, faintly sweet stuff in Leander's cup—and retires to the made ready chair. The foot stool apparently requires further adjustment from the toe of his boot before it's fit for its intended use.]
But I can only assume you've been busy learning your lockpicks. Slowly, [is a reminder as his heel settles in its place, punctuated by a nod to the book.] We've discussed the deficiencies of my ear when it comes to parsing the language aloud.
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He tastes the wine, finds it inoffensive initially, more enjoys its settling in among his tastebuds.]
Slowly, then. To start. [A polite cough to prepare: two hitches in the throat, mouth closed.] I'll ask your forgiveness in advance for any deficiencies of the tongue.
[He doesn't smile, but gives the page below a lofty look, with his eyebrows raised just enough—nor does he glance the commander's way, or wet his lip. He knows his voice is pleasing; he knows the language like someone who loves it. He knows the way he is, stood there next to the fire, a cup in one hand and a book spread between his fingers and thumb, is tinder enough.
And the commonalities between them (different materials, similar shapes), and his willingness to bend (but only so far), and the very dangerous thing they're about to do (the thrill of secrecy and potential in it), those are the sparks.
And so he simply begins the verse.]
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Mostly it is, at its center, a poem very pleased with it's own cleverness. It delights in detail as a flayed fish loves salt. The rise and fall of the unfamiliar constants is like a texture under the fingertips, separating this room from everything it is otherwise attached to in the way each portrait drawn in the verse is distinct. And Leander has a pleasant voice. It's an easy rythm to settle into.
He listens, one foot propped up on the stool and his elbows hooked patiently at the arms of the chair with the cup of wine balanced between them. It has been a long day, and there is something sentimental about being read to—
He listens to the shape of a language that is part sound and half meaning, nursing his drink, and is content to let Leander decide when he is finished.]
no subject
A break, unhurried, while the wine does its work, his pale slate eye never leaving the page. While his tongue barely glints at the corner of his mouth, he seems to read ahead in silence, then rolls a smoothing sound through his throat and resumes.
More than once, a smile threatens to surface among the speaking shapes. Finely sculpted lips, hewn and polished teeth. Now and then, the sliding offset of his jaw. His voice delivering the verse as fluid smoke. The crisp edge of his presence softening, stroke by stroke, as ice softens beneath the hand.
Time slows, dozes; the world winds down into words; the words themselves wind down, until the first book has run out, and Leander's voice cedes to silence. He turns the page, again reads on for some seconds, only for himself...
and looks up, at last.
A soft pat, cushioned by air, as the book closes in his hand.]
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Without straightening, from where Flint has settled deep into the armchair—
He studies him for a moment, and so for a brief window is equally susceptible to inspection. At some point during their exploration, both the line of tension held sharp across shoulders and the sparking humor hiding behind his whiskers has faded somewhat.]
It didn't sound like you needed much preparation.
[And, as if the two were somehow related:]
I don't have to tell you that Carastes will put you well out of the reach of any reliable friend.
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No, you don't.
[Close enough, now, to offer the book back to its owner without needing to reach very far. The gesture pulls his cuff to the knob of his wrist, where his simple bracelets are tied—braided cotton floss in dull red, dark grey, and one a shade in between that looks older than the others. The slim silver ring on his thumb is new. (The piercing weight of his focus is not.)]
You know I can make friends anywhere.
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Good. You'll need them.
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Instead, softly, a question rarely asked:]
Tell me what you're thinking.
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It's a trace thing. An invisible adjustment—as if Flint is suddenly aware of his own shape in the world again after a series of minutes wherein he'd comfortably forgotten it.
He doesn't adjust the cup where it's balanced on his leg; the urge to do so is dismissed as unnecessary.]
That I've enjoyed our conversations, and suspect I'll notice their absence.
[Because, yes. Leander does have a way of making unexpected friends for himself, doesn't he?]
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So will I.
[Seconds of quiet, settling comfortably, while he considers. It can't be the wine, he's only just lifting the cup now to finish it—]
I've not lain with anyone else since our first. [Let him imagine the reasons why.] Is that something you'd like to keep?
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And the truth is, he is sending a man who dreamed himself into something very dark out into a place designed to reinforce that impulse. Carry this hot coal in your palm, Leander. Would it not be prudent to encourage a sense of control over that?
A log in the fire pops loud. The spark of it glints at the corner of his eye.]
Given how everything else will be well beyond me, I should say yes. [Should. Isn't. He is frank about it.] But I've little interest in being another person who thinks it's their responsibility to restrain you. Take your pleasure. I would only warn you that the Imperium loves nothing more than to make a shackle out of the things most ready to give it.
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Hardly a revelation. It lands like a familiar cinder, nonetheless, a memory unremarked upon through the mechanics of his body.]
I've never known a place that didn't. [His open hand asks for the captain's cup.] And you'll have my work.
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Leander. [Is like the firm shape of his thumb.] Tell me why you asked.
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He's watching the hand, the skin's long-weathered texture, freckled creases, suggestion of fine golden hairs in firelight—and only the hand, not the rings that adorn it. Their hands, together. Contrasting masculine forms. His own fingers, no longer light as birds' bones—this healthier strength cultivated in the months since the cave—but still slim in comparison.
He takes his time in answering.
(A vow consigned to flame, rough edge of a door beneath his hand, dark eyes bright and hard. Cutting himself free of their tangle, leaving them both clumsy for the lack of its binding. You are not a possession anyone keeps.)]
To measure the extent of my usefulness by offering something of little advantage to you, but valuable to me. I was curious what you'd say. [Tilting his head, reflective,] It's been a while since anyone's held my hand.
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(If Leander is studying their hands, then Flint is watching the half of his face which is cast in shadow—how the space widens or narrows with that faint tilt.)
There is a callous along the side of the thumb pressed into the heel of Leander's palm.]
I want to understand the conclusions you've drawn from it. Is your curiosity satisfied?
[Had Leander been there for that game of swords he and Rutyer had played in the courtyard? The turn in that bout—the second round when he'd come for Byerly with all the grace of a machete hacking?]
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For this question his smile finally makes good on its threat, though he pulls it back before it can achieve its full width.]
Never.
[His closest fingers need only curl to meet a wrist, and so they do, dragging slow across softer skin. Tendons and tributaries.]
Did you think I asked because it seemed like what you'd want to hear?
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[The beat of the pulse in that wrist is a steady, regular thing.]
But I also think you asked because you wanted me to try putting a leash on you.
[His temple tilts by the narrowest degree, attention fixed. Is he wrong?]
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[Fond, as though they've been close all this time. Haven't they? In their own strange ways? Both men are excellent at keeping themselves busy, always moving, and yet it persists—whatever this is. Something. Nothing playing at being something.]
No. I should like to be kept, I think, if only for a little while. [There's that flicker of mischief.] But then, I might be depriving myself of someone who'll have me more than once a year—
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I'm trying to give you something now I wouldn't have then.
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At last Leander's silhouette moves, becomes less a tower, as he sits on the arm of the chair. His cup is discarded on some nearby surface, shelf or table, and his hand comes to cover the one tight on his wrist. To make a pet of himself now would be vulgar—instead, this. Warmth from the fire, in the space now narrow between them, their skins. The simple weight of a hand.]
Tell me.
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My trust.
[Is punctuated by some give and take of fingers. Somewhere in the drawn sharp lines of his face lives something vulnerable.
(What did James Flint dream of? A distinct and aching sort of want made purposefully remote in the waking world.)]
This thing in Tevinter—the war there and what comes through it. That matters to me. I'm giving you a piece of it.
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Why is too broad, could become why me—he's not interested in that. The back-and-forth about leashes and what-else, that's merely a gentle application of teeth.
But the warning to keep himself close, lest it be turned on him, is fit to draw attention. Anyone who's known Leander knows also the vigilance with which he keeps his privacy; it's a wasted piece of advice that gleams when he turns it over in his mind.
His fingers tighten very faintly.]
Will you trust me with the reason it matters?
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He could easily pretend not to understand the question.]
You remember the house on that island.
[In the fire light, visible because Leander is so near and looking straight at it, that gap in his expression gives halfway. Inside it lives—]
Long before Corypheus opened the Breach, the Imperium saw fit first to strip everything from the people who would have made a home there. And then to murder one of them for it. So I would see Corypheus undone, yes. But the thing which empowered him in the first place—that I mean to burn to cinders. And I will be damned if the fucking Southern Divine thinks she should be who sets light to it just because she imagines herself to be a fitting replacement.
[—rage.]
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The ripples, rolling quietly and inexorably outward to touch every shore—the awareness that he himself might create them. He remembers that, too.
The scope of this man's intent is very grand, indeed.]
Then let our first spark land in Carastes.
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It's a thought that would seem inconsequential in the harsh light of day when placed in context of the wide world. But in a closed room and close together, it's possible the see the idea for what it is. Broad and dangerous. A thing with teeth and purpose enough to use them.
For an instant, the answer to this consensus shows both black and heated in him. Not a spark, but a fierce and ravenous darkness.]
Given the events of last night and this place's indecision, we will need to have you off quickly in order to avoid the shadow of whatever conclusions might be reached.
[If under Leander's hand his grip eases then it is by a matter of degrees.]
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